[Aptitude-devel] Bug#793307: Bug#793307: Bug#793307: aptitude: Add a confirmation for changing 'automatic' flag

[Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo]

Control: tags -1 + wontfix


2015-07-29 21:36 Артём Банщиков:
>On Fri, 24 Jul 2015 19:54:09 +0100 "Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo" <
>manuel.montezelo at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 2015-07-22 20:01 artem_banschikov:
>> >On Wed, 22 Jul 2015 19:24:07 +0200 Axel Beckert <abe at debian.org> wrote:
>> >Hi,
>> >> If we do so, we should
>> >>
>> >> a) make it optional (on by default is fine for me),
>> >Completely agree.
>> >> b) only ask for confirmation if it would catch more than one package
>> >>    (i.e. for whole branches)
>> >I thought about three options: ask for one package, ask for multiple
>> >packages, not ask at all. There is file deletion dialog in Ranger
>> >file-manager made in this way.
>> >> c) only for "m", not for "M" (as the subject may suggest)
>> >Confirmation for "M" may be added for consistency.
>> >
>> >Anyway I'll be glad if you make exactly as you said as it will entirely
>solve
>> >my problem.
>> >
>> >Best regards, Artyom.
>>
>>
>> What about Undo (Control-U), as Axel suggested in the previous e-mail?
>>
>> IMO it is a more general solution, and already implemented, so it should
>be
>> favoured rather than adding these new options (unless it does not work).
>
>1) It may be not obvious for unexperienced user.
>2) It may be not noticed quickly enough.
>But optional warning in status screen may be added for using "m" on
>multiple packages.

I am still not convinced that this is a good idea to add, so I will mark
it as +wontfix for the time being.


Justification:

In principle it should be harmless to add another confirmation dialog
for those cases where users might not notice the action, but in practice
it needs a lot of work: to add additional config options, handle them in
code, add code and signals to show dialogs and react to confirmention
events, document all that, translate the documentation, fix bugs for the
implementation mistakes several years down the line...

And surely, if one has confirmation for that relatively harmless action,
there are others which are much more dangerous and also deserve
confirmations: removing/purging, or reinstalling (can break running
services in the machine).

So I don't want to start the argument of the slippery slope and blame
global warming on confirmation dialogs; but suddenly this is not just a
harmless new dialog -- implementing this leaves less time to work on
other pressing issues, and all of that added complexity makes aptitude
more difficult to maintain in the long term.

Even if we had infinite time to implement all that (e.g. it would not
detract to work on other things, etc.), I think that increasing the
number of dialogs and config options for aptitude is actively harmful
and makes the program less useful, so it should only be used with a good
justification.

As to the questions that it may be not obvious for the unexperienced
user or not noticed quickly enough... in my opinion, setting a package
as manually installed is generally harmless, compared to most things
that can be done on aptitude, and not a real problem in 99% of cases
other than added cruft.


Cheers.
-- 
Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo <manuel.montezelo at gmail.com>